DKA + hepatic lipidosis = $$$ last few weeks

[dirtyhippiegirl]

It's been a crazy last few weeks. We rushed our five year-old cat to the emergency vet after I found him half-dead in the basement. (It still makes me immensely sad to think of how old, alone, and in pain he must have been for hours before I found him. He had seemed fine the day before.) You could smell the ketones. His blood sugar was in the 600s on admission. They called with the fatty liver suspicion after the plasma in his blood turned yellow when they ran it through the centrifuge. The cost to get him home was close to 4k.

He is back to his baseline, eating by mouth and acting like our normal Radar. We are having his e-tube removed on Saturday and I am hoping to get the okay to transition him to a diabetic-friendly diet. I am hoping his vet doesn't give me too much grief for wanting to use low carb wet food over the rx diet.

He is currently on 2 units of Lantus twice a day. With him transitioning to a diabetic diet soon, I have an Alphatrak 2 that should be here today.

With all of this, I am having the most trouble trying to transition our other two cats (who are 9 and almost 20) to scheduled feeds. I would rather NOT have a second cat go into liver failure!

Happy to be here.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

Welcome

See the following for transitioning
http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

It is good that you are going to home test BGs. Most of us test before each shot and periodically between shots. We record our reading and other info in a spreadsheet. See:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
Goot that your realize that there is no reason for a prescription food. Here is a list of commercial low-carb canned

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/shortcut-shopping-list-all-8-or-less-updated.117688/

Here is a link to home testing blood sugar http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Most of us here human BG meters since the strips for the pet specific meters are so expensive. Some here with AlphaTrac meter uses human FreeStyle strils since they work if you code them correct. Someone here should be able to proded info on coding FreeStyle strips

 

[dirtyhippiegirl]

Welcome

See the following for transitioning
http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

Hey! Thanks for the reply. He's already eating blenderized "Urgent Care" wet food and has shown interest in a few of the low carb wet foods I've brought home (already found Dr. Lisa's list and was using those numbers) for him to taste test so hopefully that transition won't be too hard. I'm more worried about bottoming out his blood sugar with the carb switch, have a plan for alternating meals and frequent testing until he's settled on the new diet. Just need the okay that we can do it from a liver perspective.

A friend of mine gave me 90 unopened, unexpired Alphatrak strips from her cat that passed away so I splurged and bought the meter. It's in the back of my mind that we may have to switch if the cost of the strips gets to be too much.

 

[BJM]

Switching to a low carb diet may reduce the glucose 100-200 mg/dL and may reduce the insulin dose required by 1-2 units. You will need to be monitoring closely as you do this to see how the change affects your cat. We suggest switching only 20-25% different food each day or two to avoid food refusals, and GI upsets.

See my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for some additional assessments to help evaluate your cat. Many of them are the kinds of questions a vet will ask when you bring your cat in for routine visits.